Lorraine O'Grady: The First and the Last of the Modernists 2010
About this Series/Project
Lorraine O’Grady’s diptych series pairs images of nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire and twentieth-century American musician Michael Jackson—artists she considers to be “the first and the last of the modernists.” O’Grady maintains that Baudelaire and Jackson, artists separated by nearly 150 years, occupied pivotal positions in their genres and shared surprisingly similar traits, including dramatic flair, aspirations to greatness, unrelenting perfectionism, drug addiction, and ambiguous sexuality. Choosing from tens of thousands of internet images of Jackson to pair with the few available images of Baudelaire, O’Grady represents the two men at roughly the same ages, tracing their trajectories: Baudelaire’s descent from an aristocratic family into poverty and Jackson’s rise to wealth and fame. Made in part to reconsider the life and career of Michael Jackson, The First and the Last of the Modernistsraises questions about the roles of art and popular culture as well as how modern figures are presented, flattened, and distributed through the news media.
Lorraine O’Grady’s diptych series pairs images of nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire and twentieth-century American musician Michael Jackson—artists she considers to be “the first and the last of the modernists.” O’Grady maintains that Baudelaire and Jackson, artists separated by nearly 150 years, occupied pivotal positions in their genres and shared surprisingly similar traits, including dramatic flair, aspirations to greatness, unrelenting perfectionism, drug addiction, and ambiguous sexuality. Choosing from tens of thousands of internet images of Jackson to pair with the few available images of Baudelaire, O’Grady represents the two men at roughly the same ages, tracing their trajectories: Baudelaire’s descent from an aristocratic family into poverty and Jackson’s rise to wealth and fame. Made in part to reconsider the life and career of Michael Jackson, The First and the Last of the Modernistsraises questions about the roles of art and popular culture as well as how modern figures are presented, flattened, and distributed through the news media.
last image: Bruce High Quality Foundation and Lorraine O'grady
(car with video) Bruce High Quality Foundation. We Like America and America Likes Us, 2010. Vehicle and educational implements. dimensions variable. collection of the artist
(above photos) Lorraine O'Grady, Charles and Michael, 2010. chromogenic prints mounted on aluminum. each 46 3/4 x 37 3/8. collection of the artist; courtesy Alexander Gray Assoc. NY
notes by Sokref1 Flickr user.
Artist info:
Lorraine O'Grady view artist page.
Other sources for this topic are Contemporary Art Museum, 3-is-enough blog, Fans of Lorraine O'Grady at the 2010 Whitney Biennial facebook page, Mousse Magazine, Artnet Magazine and Whitney Museum's web page.
Lorraine O'Grady official web page.
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